Preparing for session. 2014.

The 2014 Washington state Legislature will reconvene on January 13th and will be in session through March 13th, 2014. We here at the WTIA will be actively following legislative activity that will affect our membership base and champion initiatives that will direct more resources to address the chronic shortage of talent faced by our industry.

In December we met with a number of legislators to reinforce that the WTIA priority for this upcoming session is to see that the R&D spending credit is renewed past its January 1st, 2015 expiration. It is critical that we retain and foster a favorable business climate to remain competitive in the country for business site location and growth purposes. When the time is right for our membership base to voice its support for this incentive we will call on you to do so and hope you will take a few moments to inform policy makers how this credit has been beneficial to your business.

Below you can find two letters written last month to make our positions known. One states our position again draft House bill 2771, Enacting the Digital World Privacy Act, by RepresentativeÂ Morris. The other letter is in support of the federal legislation now pending in the U.S. Senate for the Start Up Jobs and Innovation Act, SB 1658. We voiced our support to this legislation through the national organization, TechVoice.

If you have topics of interest that you are tracking in Olympia this session please don’t hesitate to let me know how I can be of assistance, or if you would like to meet to discuss any policy areas that may affect your business. I am looking forward to spending time in Olympia this session and look forward to meeting the WTIA members who are active in policy formation.